Hi, I just bought a new PC and for the first time I decided to install an ATI Radeon Graphic Card - 9600 Pro instead of an Nvidea Graphic Card. Unfortunately, I think I made a bad decision, not because of the quality of the graphics, but because of the problems I'm having with it.

First of all, I instaled the Drivers and Catalyst Software that came with the Graphics Card. However I started to have some problems. Everytime I play an online game my PC (with Windows XP) restarts automatically. This also happens sometimes when I'm just online. After turning on again Windows XP tells me it recupoerated from a serious problem - a problem with drivers. I'm almost certain it's a problem with my graphic drivers or with my cable modem drivers.

Anyway I tried to update my ATI CATALYST Drivers to version 3.10. After installing the drivers I had to install the 3.10 Catalyst Control Panel. After restarting the computer the Control Panel told me tha it couldn't detect any installed drivers!!! It said that there might be a problem with the drivers or they don't exist!!! I repeated the process more times and nothing. I even tried to install other versions and nothing. I can only install the Catalyst Drivers and Control Panel that came with the instalation CD of my ATI Radeon 9600 Pro Graphics Card. How is this possible?? What can I do to solve my problem???

i have the same exact problem, and i cant fix it - because as soon as i do something graphics intensive, like even going to a flash based website, the computer just does a hard restart and i can never do any work. someone help me out here...

Originally posted by Deadguy Patching stuff and doing this and that takes time wear's you out. Bite the bullet.Format your hard drive and do a fresh clean install.

I hope you got to the right place deadguy.
What a sad post,and bad advice.
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Do you need Catalyst drivers ?
Do you have tv in ?
Otherwise you don't need them. I made that mistake,solved it very quickly.
Do you folks not read what ATI has to say ?
ati.com

Ive had similar problems , did you build this sytem ? There are a few things you can check to see what helps .1st off make sure you have no memory conflics use this tool MEMTest 2.1 . Run some extensive tests on your memory at boot up .I usually run it all night if no errors occur for an hour or so . Check your AGP voltage setting i run both my ATI 9700 Pro and the 9800 Pro at 1.5 v..... next This may make a differnce Boot to bios look in Advanced /Chip Configuration.
In the line Video Memory Cache Mode see if your Configuration Option is UC or USWC .
USWC(uncacheable , speculative write combining )
is a new technology for the memory video of the processor.It can greatly improve the display speed by caching the display data.You must set this to UC (uncacheable) if your display card does not support this feature . Sometimes conflics can occur with these 2 settings .I set mine at USWC this may be of interest .
I use Driver Cleaner 2 to remove any Drivers that may still linger around after uninstall .You may want to check if turning off Fast Writes in the ATI control Panel makes a difference . Use a 3Dmark tool to make sure your system is running stable i like 3DMark 02 se for general tests . "Finally " I own 2 ATI cards and they tend to run hot , but usually the system just locks up but rebooting can occur as well . Make sure you have good ventulation around the card .Ive acctually modded both my ATI cards with bigger fans to fix heat issues . Hope this helps in some way